Maxwell Horne
by Julius Archis
Summary: A story about a young, abused child, growing to be a depressed and self-pitying man.


It's 1980. I'm Maxwell. My father is a car mechanic, my mother a nurse. It was every saturday evening, when my dad went out for drinks with his friends, that my mother told me stories until I fell asleep. I sometimes could hear the television down in the living room, and sometimes even yelling from my father. He was a strong built, bearded man. Bald, too. We lived in a flat, nothing too extraordinary, downtown. A few nights usually pass without sounds. Other nights it gets really loud, I hear my parents yelling at each other about something. I heard my mother's agonizing screams as well. I once went out of bed to look at what's going on: "I've been giving all the money out for beer, you say!?" I heard my dad yell at my grounded mother, leaned against a wall in a sitting position. My father had his fist raised, ready to punch. "I've been using all the money I earned to buy all the food we get! I get no appreciation, you bitch!" I shocked back as I heard the fist pound against her cheek. Her agonized yell echoed throughout the apartment. "Stop!" I yelled, running to my father. "Why are you hurting mommy?" He'd simply push me back with a grunt, pulling my mother back to her feet. "Go to bed, Maxwell!" He barked at me. I knew that I wasn't a match for this guy, so I slowly backed off into my bedroom. I heard the slaps, yells and screams, slowly curling up and crying myself to sleep. It continued for months like this, years even. At some point, my father totally snapped. He beat up my mother completely – I was a teenager by then. He slapped her across the cheek multiple times and pummeled her into the stomach. She soon fell unconscious as my father noticed me glaring at him. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, Max!? To your room!" I grumbled and went closer. My anger burned inside, but wasn't ready to be unleashed. "You've been beating mom up for years – Why? Why do you **hate** her!?" I yelled forward. My father stepped closer and backhanded me, I stumbled to the table near the kitchen and teared up. "Don't raise your tone towards me, young man! Else I'll teach you a lesson, too!" He stepped closer and pulled me by the collar. "Understood?" I nodded silently, wriggling off of his grip to run to my bedroom. I turned on my TV and tried to distract myself, without avail. I was backhanded by my own father. What does he think he's doing? A few weeks later, it was my birthday. My father completely ignored that, my mother was at work. I shyly sat on the couch and looked at what my father was watching. He watched a classic action movie. I sighed to stand up, as he looked toward me with an expecting stare, moving the hand he leaned on the armchair down. "Sit down." I mutely followed his order and sat as still as a statue. At some point, the show finished, and I stood up. "I need to go to the toilet." He nodded and let me go. I skipped to the bathroom, undid my pants and took a leak. After I was done and flushed, I returned to make myself some food, when my mother came home from an early shift. He'd stand up to welcome her, only getting a question thrown to the face. "Why weren't you at work, Jonathan?" She raised a brow. He'd let his arms fall down. "I had a day off, I told you." She blinked and shrugged, nodding as she headed to the bedroom to change her clothes. "I'm going out with my friends today." My father was aggravated by that, snarling. "What about me? Am I supposed to do everything around here again?" She headed outside, her clothes changed to a pair of jeans and a blue top, embraced by a brown jacket. She'd have brown boots on to complement the jacket. "I can't believe you're starting with this again!" I looked back, grumbling. "Quit it!" Jonathan ignored me. He slapped his wife heavily, making her shortly scream, retreating to the bedroom. He headed to me and glared at me. "I told you once not to raise your tone at me, boy." He pulled me up. "Learn to follow my rules, dammit!" He sent a hand for my cheek, I was unable to resist. At some point, I grew out of my teenage and grew mature, before my father snapped again at one night. I heard his yells again as I headed out to see him pummeling my mother again. This time, she was already bleeding. I saw her look – She was barely conscious. I ran to my father and planted a fist for his cheek. He let go of mom and glared to me, about to grab me by the throat. I was lucky to evade, only to see that he chased me to the counter of the kitchen. My mother lost consciousness by then. He was about to send a heavy punch for me while charging. I took a knife and held my hand up. He didn't punch me. I looked up, seeing the hilt of the knife embraced by my fingers, the blade planted deeply in his chest. He stumbled back, coughing up sets of blood before falling onto his back. I couldn't believe what I saw. I stared at him for a few minutes, noticing that blood was oozing out of his wound. I panicked, quickly running to my room to put clothes on. I grabbed my father's old leather jacket and his switchblade he had in another set of pants. Nearly crying, I took the money from our bank and ran outside. I kept going and going, not sure where I was. I stopped near an alley after what seemed like an hour of running. I burst into tears and whimpered silently – I killed my own father. I curled up as I usually did, crying in the alley until I fell asleep like a toddler. I soon woke up, my eyes red from stress and the lack of sleep. A newspaper was in front of me. I read it.

"Man stabbed to death in apartment – Wife beaten to death" It was 1994, March 17th. The guilt came over me again as I burst into tears. I looked about after a few minutes, standing up to walk away from the newspaper – I didn't escape my memories. They haunted me for years, decades even. I lived on the streets now. As I grew to 22, I learned how to use my knife and earned my money by mugging people. I got about a hundred dollars from their wallets when I was lucky. A year later, I stood at the mall, staring at the TVs, past my bearded reflection. A news headline popped up. "Portal Storms infesting Earth, barricade homes" I shuddered and shrugged it off as a hoax. A few months later, near the end of 2003, it happened. I saw hundreds of green orbs appear, forming what could be identified as electric bolts before a two-legged, tentacle-faced thing jumped out, terrorizing the citizens that were there. It gurgled for a few seconds before vomiting forward a green substance at a high speed. I saw a person get hit as he screamed in agony. His flesh and tissue slowly and morbidly burned off. I could see his skull from here already. I scrambled myself back into the alley and vomited before making a run to the next apartment block. I leaped inside and locked the doors. It was my apartment block. I patted my old and moldy jeans to find my keys, heading up to find the apartment totally empty. I closed and locked it and went to sleep. A few more months passed like this until another attack happened. I didn't see exactly what it was, but I saw a sort of flying, fly-like being shooting down blue-black rounds down into the earth. I saw the police and military get shot by it. They screamed in pain and soon went limp. I ran as much as I could, seeing a giant, three-legged being just stomp beside me, loading up a blue ball at a gigantic cannon. It shot forward, dissolving the asphalt and people on it at a radius of a bout five meters. I gasped and ran into a closed shop I walked past. I rocked back and forth in the supply room, whimpering silently for what seemed like hours. I stood up at some point, seeing as the beings stopped fighting being a sign of either them winning, or nobody being there to kill. I walked outside, seeing gigantic monitors being placed onto the buildings, showing an aged man in a brown suit, speaking of a "Universal Union." Bullshit. I walked off, seeing as sets of robot-like beings scuttled past me, metal on their backs. They were making something. Years passed as I was transited over and over and over again, landing in numerous Cities around the world. I ended up, at the age of 41, in City 45, where I spent my entire year here, in these slums, waiting for my life to cheer up.


End file.
